When Professor of Law Gary T. Lowenthal takes a sabbatical and descends from the ivory towers of academia, he finds himself in a very different system of criminal justice than the one her trains his students to expect. Working in the trenches at the county attorney's office, he becomes entangled in a provocative kidnapping trial, one that takes him deep into a dark and disturbing world of criminals, victims, attorneys and judges, where innocence isn't always the best defense.